The Wrath of the Dishonored
by Impish God
Summary: There was a bit of confusion last time, but fixed now. Ozai had more than one victim when he ascended to the throne
1. Escape

The Wrath of the Dishonored

**1**

_The thousand injuries of Ozai I have born best I could. Murder, subversion, dishonor, and regicide are among his many crimes, crimes that, unfortunately, shall never be punished. Nothing the Fire-lord does is ever punished! Well, that's about to change. It will change because it must change. And if it does not change then there is only one explanation. Failure. _

_Final entry in Kochi's journal_

The boy moaned quietly and stirred from his place, upon a bed of rubbish in the east district of Ozai. Of course, the name "Ozai" would only pertain to this city until the death of the current Fire-lord, and this might be more imminent than anyone suspected. How? No one knew, except for the one who did.

The boy wore only minimal clothes, for the constant tropical atmosphere of the archipelago meant that it was not necessary to wear more. As he stood, not rubbing sleep from his eyes with grimy hands, but instead blinking multiple times, he made very sure that he was alone. There was no one else in the back room of the teashop, no one but him and the pile of rubbish. The sun shone brightly through the open roof, (it was much more annoying when it rained) but also revealed that it was quite barely dawn. No one would be out and about, because no one drank tea in the morning. So he stripped off the rags that wrapped around his body, stinking more than the rubbish heap, and tossed them atop said heap.

The boy- perhaps it would be more accurate to say teenager, or adolescent, being as he was approximately thirteen years of age- Scrunched his eyes closed, carefully breathed three deep breaths, raised his hands in front of his face, and proceeded to light his body on fire. The fire glowed bright, not burning him or his hair, but managing to destroy all of the filth slowly but surely. He held this pose for about a minute, until his skin was once more white instead of a filthy gray-brown color, and then let his hand fall to his side and the pyric aura fade completely. He did not need to indulge in showers, because he could not afford it with his small amount of money he earned from the teashop, so he was forced to burn off any filth that found its way onto his body. Sleeping on a heap of scraps offered plenty of muck.

Now that the muck and fire were both gone, the adolescent fire-bender opened his eyes and proceeded to don his uniform, the only real clothes he had. Well, with him at least. The red cloth with the telltale logo of a smoky dragon was mostly covered with a white apron that had the same logo in the right hand corner. It was too large for him, with his 135-centimeter frame and, not emaciated, but extremely thin body. The clothes were passed down from the person of closest size to him in the recent past, but he didn't care. Worn clothes served astoundingly well to mask his identity, despite the fact that his searchers knew he was not in the same attire in which he had left. His clothes were probably being sobbed over by his maternal grandmother at this moment. Assuming she was awake, of course, which she probably wasn't.

Once he was done with tying the apron strings a couple times behind him, he walked into the main building and grabbed a rag. The merchant who owned the shop was kind enough to let him live there as long as he kept working as a tea-chef. Cleaning the counters normally made the man start the day in a better mood.

Once the tea counter was spotless, or at least not sticky, the adolescent reached into the pocked of his uniform and made sure that the few copper coins were still there before leaving to find breakfast. There was a small produce mart across the square, and he went there to buy a small piece of fruit. He fished out one of the copper pieces and bought a small citrus fruit, much like a peach or apricot, before turning and finding himself face to face with none other than Joshu himself. His tutor, from before he had left. All color drained from the boy's face, and he knew that if he didn't hide or run now, he would be forced back to his life of uselessness and confinement, only even more so. Therefore, he did the only thing it was sane to do. He threw the fruit in the man's face, and ran round him.

The fruit was ripe, and splattered all over Joshu's face. He cursed, but before he had time to wipe the fruit from his eyes, the youth was back in the teashop. His sandals slipped on the slippery floor, and sent him to the ground with a thud, at the feet of his boss, Ti-cha. He scrambled to his feet and glanced over his shoulder. "I don't have any time to explain, bye!" he said quickly, and attempted to run around the tea merchant. Unfortunately, the merchant grabbed him by his apron strings, and kept him from running.

"Not now you aren't. I won't have thieves living under my roof or working here. So you'd better return whatever you took, or I'll be forced to turn you out on-"

The boy's voice, cracking from emotion and his stage of life, interrupted the man's words. "I didn't steal anything, it's this person I-" he quickly silenced himself, as the bamboo and paper door opened. It was Joshu.

"Kochi, what are you doing. You have the entire household in an uproar, and you really- Hey, come back here!"

This final outburst came about because of the boy, Kochi, reaching back and pinching the apron string that tied the entire cloth piece of clothing to his body. A small spark of flame leapt from his fingers to the apron, and burned a small hole in the rope, meaning that it was no longer bound to the apron. This all occurred during the first sentence and a half. The outburst really started when he continued running, leaving the apron in the stunned teashop owner's hand.

Joshu attempted to run after him, following the boy through the door to the back room, and then through another door into a shadowy alleyway. The older man pursued after the pattering of footsteps, but Kochi was much faster in a place were size was an issue for Joshu and not him. When he finally burst out onto the dawn-lit street, Kochi felt he was approximately two minutes ahead of his ex-tutor. The good news was that no one but the tutor knew where he was, and a single person could be eluded.

Kochi slowed to a walk once he was out of the empty street, so as not to attract unwelcome attention. The people in this district had hardly ever seen him before, so he ought to blend in as a messenger or apprentice of sorts, though the dragon inscribed on his chest probably should be eliminated as soon as possible. It was surprising, now that he thought about it, that Joshu would be in this lower district, which was home to the middle class for the most part. The tutor probably was looking for him, possibly because the search had not located him away from the city. His subversion of the unexpected was no longer working, as soon as the tutor returned to Kochi's legal guardians.

The young fire-bender finally made his way to the city gate, which was, apparently, unmanned, and east facing, to throw the inner side of the wall and gate into partial shadow. This served the runaway well, and he would likely not have any trouble getting over the wall. The wall's bricks were rough, and offered plenty of handholds to the agile fire-bender.

Once he was three-quarters of the way to the top of the wall, he became aware of a rattle of distant footsteps. There was a soldier coming along the wall, there was not much time to spare, so Kochi quickened his ascent. Unfortunately, his crimson clothes caught on the jagged edge of a stone, and tore them jaggedly. His copper coins spilled from the gap, and fell to the ground, six meters below, with a rain of tinkling music, a requiem to his ears. He needed that money to be able to survive anywhere civilized, but he could not retrieve it and still escape his pursuer and the soldier, who was coming steadily closer. So he continued up the wall, and, once he reached the top, the soldier was about ten meters away. He apparently saw the adolescent, for he charged forward.

Kochi saw that there was no way he could descend the wall the same way he ascended, so he ran to the gate, which was iron and extended to the top of the rampart. He grabbed the nearest solid bar link and swung so that his hands and feet were about the bar, but the rest of his body was away from it. The crossbars were on the inside, luckily, so he only had to release the bar for a millisecond for each. His hands grew warm, and he could tell that his sandals were wearing from the friction, but he managed to reach the bottom quickly. The soldier glared at him from the wall, but his metal armor and gauntlets rendered him quite helpless.

The boy, now that he was on an open road, burst into full speed, trying to put as much distance between him and the wall and pursuit. He did not stop until he reached a grove of trees, where he stopped, panting, gasping for breath beyond the eyes from the wall. Once he had done so, he touched the logo upon his chest and scorched it off quickly. This added to the general raggedness of his attire, and probably just made him seem like too young of a wanderer, nothing more.

Now that the adrenaline and excitement had faded, he realized he was ravenously hungry. There was no food about, he was too tired to make his way to the nearest town other than the capital, and the woods looked rather empty. They were the type of small groves that were inhabited, because of nearby human habitation and isolation from larger forests, by only birds, rodents, insects and other assorted small beings, useless to fill his belly. He needed to rest, he knew, because he was overheated and exhausted. So he climbed into a nearby tree, and quickly fell asleep.


	2. Prophecy

**2**

_The disappearance of Princess Ursa occurring within a day of her husband becoming the unexpected Fire-lord was not as much of a coincidence as he would like you to believe. The death of Azulon, as may be noted, said that he, an old man, had tripped and plunged into the flames surrounding his throne and had burned horribly to within an inch of death. He was retrieved by his son, the younger son Ozai, who supposedly heard the screams, ran to his assistance, and heard his dying wish, so that he would be the successor, before he died in his son's arms. If it weren't for the iron fist that Ozai held over the realm, there would have been questions as to the legitimacy of this occurrence, but such would immediately have caused the silence of a traitor to the Fire Nation that suggested it. Now I offer a suggestion, should this diary ever be found, is that Ursa, entered in entreaty to the dread lord, actually killed him herself, possibly because of threats to her children by her husband. Naturally, to protect her life and that of others, she was forced to flee, allowing her husband to take the throne and her son to become the heir. That is, instead of my grandfather the Fire-lord and my father the heir._

_Kochi's Journal_

He stood upon a massive field. The sun was concealed by strangely roiling clouds, dark grays and light mixing eternally in an impossible scenario. The field itself was barren, a huge flat mass of gray-brown clay without the smallest hint of life of any part. As Kochi stood, he realized that the clay was redder than he had first imagined, and parts of it looked rust colored, like dried blood. This disturbed him, but he knew not why. He felt heat upon his back, and turned, finding he stared into a huge inferno, surrounded by three trees that appeared to have stood there since antiquity, though there was no plant elsewhere on the field. The fire had already consumed one tree, and had mostly burned away another, and yet another was beginning to burn. The final tree looked partially rotted, but not by the heat. Upon the nearly consumed tree, a swirl was inscribed. On the withering, a pattern reminiscent of a stylized group of waves stood out brown against the decay darkened bark. The tree that began to burn, even as he watched, had a circle inscribed in a square.

The boy took a step back, afraid of the massive inferno, which he knew would not fade until either an external force doused it or it consumed everything here. As the nearly destroyed tree collapsed into ash, a small seed, blown by the wind, flew to the decaying tree and settled at its base. It sprouted with unnatural speed, and turned into a small sapling. Its branches entwined the dying tree, and supported it, as the decay faded, and the trees grew strong together, until a single branch from the new tree touched the other tree. The burning tree collapsed, but a small seed rolled along the branch of the new tree, and fell among its boughs. The fire spread forward suddenly and was soon to consume these two trees, this he knew. Yet the seed from the now dead tree seemed to strengthen the new tree and the once decaying tree, causing the tree to grow together and become a mightier tree than any of the trees before it.

The inferno, powered by its fuel, seemed a match for it, and it burned the two trees, which grew into one tree. The growth competed with the destruction, but it still couldn't defeat the fire. Without warning, from the ash of the tree that had been consumed before Kochi had seen this sight, a seed was blown by a sirocco wind to Kochi's feet. Its root dug deep, and struck a vein of water, as the tree grew from the ground in a bucket shape. This quickly filled, and Kochi reached down to it and plucked it from the ground. He threw the water on the inferno, small though it was, and the fire flickered. It wasn't much, but it was enough. The tree now grew, ripened with sudden strength, and water flowed from it onto the inferno, dousing it, destroying it.

From the tree flew three seeds, which each grew quickly into mighty trees that were equal in strength and majesty to the one that spawned them. The symbols reappeared upon each, the one that had had the waves now had a swirl, but the other symbols appeared on each of the trees as before. The trees slowly grew now; steadily moving closer and closer, and finally they joined, to become a tree mightier than any of the trees could have become on their own. Kochi was filled with a peace, and he knew this was how the trees should be.

Yet, even as he watched, a voice thundered from the boiling heavens. It was infinitely more powerful than mortal noise, and it said something in a language that Kochi understood, but never heard before.

**"You have chosen this path, and see the future. See now what it will truly become."**

And from the clouds descended a bolt of lightning that stuck the mightiest of trees, and burned it to nothing more than ash. A rust red ash. Kochi now saw what each of the patches he had seen earlier was, and he fell to the ground and wept, though he knew not truly what for.


End file.
